Believe it or not – I have had to wait up until last week to have my first barbecue of the season! But no matter what the weather, this little sauce is sure to cheer you up!

For a very long time I dismissed barbecue sauce as ‘yet another meat dip’. The only time any of us would use it was at barbecues, and more often than not, I’d just go for the ketchup instead. The first time I saw it on a pizza, I was intrigued and slightly disgusted at the same time. I guess that somewhere and somehow I thought that, unless you opted for French grainy mustard, sauces were a kind of sacrilege to food. What, you’re going to douse that expertly grilled steak in a nondescript brown sauce and therefore negate all the flavour? Be my guest, but I won’t be joining you. Well, it turns out that barbecue sauce as an ingredient is actually pretty versatile and with this recipe you can make it as gourmet as you like! Good news all round, right?

I must admit that this recipe isn’t actually mine. I didn’t even come up with the idea. As an avid food blogger I am constantly on the lookout for new recipes – and one day a fellow blogger posted this delicious recipe that she got from another blogger! I always wondered how they make barbecue sauce and how they get it to be so brown and smokey-flavoured. I had heard of people making their own ketchup before, although the outcomes looked a bit questionable more often than not, but for some reason I assumed that you couldn’t make barbecue sauce yourself. And to be fair, this sauce here won’t look or taste much like barbecue sauce until you add the super top-secret magic ingredient – molasses. Molasses is a by-product of sugar production and has the consistency of runny honey, but it is deep black and has an intense and very complex flavour. On its own it’s not very pleasant, but as soon as it hits the other ingredients you will see what I can only describe as magic. If you can’t find molasses, just use treacle – it is virtually the same thing and the result will still be astounding.

Makes approximately 1 jar of 500g plus enough to marinade 2-4 steaks:

1 tin chopped tomatoes

50g ketchup

1 tbsp tomato concentrate

2 garlic cloves

1-2 tsp dried chilli

2 tsp hot mustard

2 tbsp white wine or cider vinegar

2-3 tbsp brown sugar

4 tbsp molasses or treacle

salt and pepper to taste

Add a glug of water if you find your sauce too thick

Watch the video for instructions, and do get in touch if you have any questions, as silly as you think they might be!